Shafted by buyer on email

Kayjo

Hi
I've bought stuff on Ebay regularly with no problem. I was lucky enough to get to H&M and buy some of their Erdem designer range. The range was only available on 2nd November.
I posted a blouse on 3rd November and it was immediately bought on a Buy-It-Now. I lovingly wrapped it in tissue paper an sent it off.
Now, 15 days later, on 24 November the buyer comes back and says it was not as described, there were no tags, it stunk of BO and smoke!!
This is such a lie. It was brand new and with tags. I have a few other photos I took at the time but didn't post due to quality but the buyer says I could have taken them off the web. I don't know what to do. This is so wrong and blatant theft.
It is quite obvious that this buyer has bought this item, worn it for 15 days and is now trying to get their money back.
I feel gutted. I don't have £90 to lose on this item and feel so angry that sellers don't have any rights and I have been totally scammed.
Any advice gratefully received.

Pun

Presumably you have the original receipt for this and could if necessary provide a copy to ebay/the buyer? I'm not quite sure how much that would help your case, but at least it would show it was brand new a very short time before it was posted to your delightful(!) buyer.

goodfella66

Buyer has purchased the item, worn it once (or more) and now wants to return it. Unfortunately, I don't think there is a great deal you can do. All the Ebay automated systems will favour the buyer. You can try ringing Ebay but the humans are no better than the bots from my experience. I feel for you.

I used to sell clothes on Ebay. Gave that up a while back...way too much trouble. Had more trouble with clothing buyers than everything I else I sell put together.

soolin

This is an issue a lot of businesses selling clothes face and unfortunately dealing with scammers needs to be built into any business model both in person and online. The profits on clothes can be high but so can the risks.

However, I assume when you listed you did use your own photos on the listing and not a stock photo? It probably won't help but it might just be worth phoning ebay to point out that buyer is obviously trying it on as he is saying your photos are stock photos when it is obvious they were taken by you of the exact item you had.

If you end up refunding then make sure buyer returns item first through a proper ebay case, not just via email. No case = no return.

Kayjo

Thank you so much for your replies.

Yes, I do have the receipt for the blouse, but I guess they could argue I could still have worn it in the day or two between sale and posting. Yet it took them 15 days to let me know there was a problem. Who buys a blouse for £135 and opens it to find it's worn and covered in smoke or whatever and doesn't do something immediately? No doubt it was 15 days in which they were wearing and enjoying it at my expense.

I did do some of my own photos which do show the blouse with tag on, but I posted a stock photo because I thought my own photos weren't good enough quality. I do still have these photos.

I feel so upset by this. Not only because I did it all in such good faith even purchasing nice packaging to send it off. I have been 100% scammed and what is really upsetting is that I am new to selling and the buyer, who's grammar and turn of phrase leaves much to be desired (!) and shows a very uneducated person, has left a horrible review so anyone buying from me in the future are going to think I'm the crook!!!

It's a lot of money to lose. Even if I get the blouse back, I expect it's not in a saleable condition. Does he/she have to return the blouse? I don't know.

I do know I will write a formal letter to Ebay to say what a scam this is.

soolin

Kayjo wrote: »

Thank you so much for your replies.

Yes, I do have the receipt for the blouse, but I guess they could argue I could still have worn it in the day or two between sale and posting. Yet it took them 15 days to let me know there was a problem. Who buys a blouse for £135 and opens it to find it's worn and covered in smoke or whatever and doesn't do something immediately? No doubt it was 15 days in which they were wearing and enjoying it at my expense.

I did do some of my own photos which do show the blouse with tag on, but I posted a stock photo because I thought my own photos weren't good enough quality. I do still have these photos.

I feel so upset by this. Not only because I did it all in such good faith even purchasing nice packaging to send it off. I have been 100% scammed and what is really upsetting is that I am new to selling and the buyer, who's grammar and turn of phrase leaves much to be desired (!) and shows a very uneducated person, has left a horrible review so anyone buying from me in the future are going to think I'm the crook!!!

It's a lot of money to lose. Even if I get the blouse back, I expect it's not in a saleable condition. Does he/she have to return the blouse? I don't know.

I do know I will write a formal letter to Ebay to say what a scam this is.

Are you using a business account on ebay?

The reason I ask is that you may have been targeted as someone playing fast and loose with the rules, so fair game to a scammer (some people justify their own bad behaviour this way). So for instance, new seller, not properly registered so no return policy for change of minds using stock photo on a popular item and frankly if a buyer had come on here saying they had received a damaged item in this situation we probably would have said it was a pay day loan scenario.

However that doesn't help you except to perhaps suggest a few changes you can make for future sales.

Without your own photos on the listing I think this is a slam dunk for the buyer. All you can do is tell them to open a case for the return , pay for a label and get the item back. If the buyer is merely getting round a no returns policy you might even get the item back intact. If it comes back damaged then phone ebay and complain and also as soon as you agree the return use the report a buyer button to report buyer for mis use of the ebay guarantee.

For future reference you need a business account and a if you haven't already got one a good return policy so that if a buyer changes their mind they can return goods rather than do a fake SNAD. Be exceedingly careful using stock photos, add them to a listing where you have the company permission (people like M and S for instance will get your listing pulled if you use their images regularly) but also more importantly add your own photos.

Brooker_Dave

Kayjo wrote: »

I feel gutted. I don't have £90 to lose on this item and feel so angry that sellers don't have any rights and I have been totally scammed.
Any advice gratefully received.

Stop using Ebay then.

Crooked buyer can keep the clothes, you keep the money, problem solved.

There's no actual reason other than ebay bullying for you to refund.

RFW

Kayjo wrote: »

I do know I will write a formal letter to Ebay to say what a scam this is.

Better start by Tweeting them. Contact them in other ways first. You need to get the buyer looked into somehow. If they have multiple returns on their account and similar messages then that should help.
Also see if Ebay will check their buyer history. If they do this regularly there will be a trace of it. What you'll need to do is force Ebay to look into it, that's the tricky part. Tweeting them might just push you up the rank.

As regards the buyer I would politely suggest that they must have mixed your order with another, as you have documented evidence that the item purchased was brand new and sent out as such. So much time has passed that they must have purchased something elsewhere and contacted you in error. The worst thing to do is call them a liar, you need to subtly suggest that they've made a mistake and they shouldn't be pursuing you.

ballisticbrian

The first thing to do before the relationship sours, (hope it's not too late) is to check that the buyer clicked on the right item when making contact. The gap in messaging you rings true with this. We had someone contact us saying the clothing was ripped and we sent a message saying "are you sure you haven't clicked on the wrong item?" and they replied "sorry, yes it's someone else, your thing was absolutely lovely thank you."

RFW

ballisticbrian wrote: »

The first thing to do before the relationship sours, (hope it's not too late) is to check that the buyer clicked on the right item when making contact. The gap in messaging you rings true with this. We had someone contact us saying the clothing was ripped and we sent a message saying "are you sure you haven't clicked on the wrong item?" and they replied "sorry, yes it's someone else, your thing was absolutely lovely thank you."

I've surprisingly had that a few times. The best was someone calling my mobile when I was at the airport going away for a couple of weeks. I had a very irate customer rambling for five minutes when I finally got to hear what he'd bought it was nothing I'd ever sold. He finished telling me my item was great.
It's quite easy to mix up sellers and items within an order. I like to think my customer might be an idiot before thinking they're committing fraud. It's often as difficult to get them to admit to being an idiot than a fraudster, it's usually an average of three messages ad me being infuriatingly nice throughout.

Pun

Brooker_Dave wrote: »

Stop using Ebay then.

Crooked buyer can keep the clothes, you keep the money, problem solved.

There's no actual reason other than ebay bullying for you to refund.

I'll think you will find there is an 'actual reason' - ebay won't bully, they will simply refund, so your jolly little scenario won't work.